Nursery School   Education Principles The growth of the child upto the age of 6 / 7 is phenomenal. Learning happens largely through sensory perception in the earlier years and increasingly there is a building up of motor and coordination skills. The child has what Maria Montessori called the "Absorbent mind", registering and learning constantly. The function of the school is to provide various experiences - sensorial, language, musical, pattern recognition, numbers etc. and let the child learn by herself , without compulsion and with the minimum of guidance.   The role of the parent / teacher is: To offer their "beings" in a warm and facilitative relationship with children. To provide materials and opportunities through which children develop their perception and skills. To help children acquire a basic sense of order, rhythm and boundaries through simple rules of work and play. The following are some of the features that help translate these principles into practice: A culture of openness, warmth and support which helps teachers be creative and cheerful at school Montessori methods for fostering a basic sense of order, coordination and focus. Playway methods which focus on interaction, expression and learning through play and fun. Singing , chanting shlokas in sanskrit. Arts and crafts integrated with basic language and number-work learning. Workshops for parents on parenting, life skills building, foundation for responsibility, emotional intelligence, creativity, developmental stages of the child, learning styles etc. For example, respecting diversity involves offering children a variety of exam options - for the present we have therefore decided on the ICSE,  and the NOS exams. It also means helping children experience a variety of resource persons although they will have a main anchor person in their teacher. Acknowledging interconnectedness needs an understanding of what creates a sense of community. Apart from the sharing of the philosophy and common concerns, festivals foster a sense of community. At Prakriya therefore we will have at least three kinds of festivals in which everyone participates actively Kite Flying in Jan/ February Garba Dancing during Dusserha Zany games festival like Tech Mach And what is our philosophy, our fundamental guides of what are the essentials and the non-essentials? We hope to constantly foster both our "being" and "becoming". Foster both a sense of wholesomeness, integrity, and joyousness and also foster rigour and seriousness of purpose in acquiring knowledge and skills. This requires that as teachers we are sensitive to the child, the way she learns, her natural talents and intelligence, what is her preferred learning style and what kind of pressures seem to be subtly destructive of the child's essential well being and so on - we would need a greater sense of balance an ability to walk the Great Buddha's Middle Path which is often really a tight rope walk! We need to realise that academic rigour is not the same as intellectual rigour. Academic rigour requires ability to do tests and other school exercises well, following instructions correctly, conform to procedures and behaviour as per set standards etc; In contrast, intellectual rigour refers to qualities of the mind, its search not only for knowledge but of ways of living with wisdom, concern for seeking and solving problems and so on. Another thing about rigour is that it is not only for something we make the children "do". We need rigour in a whole lot of things in the school. The way we relate to each other and the parents and the world in general, the way we are willing to question ourselves, our commitment to our own learning and growth, the attention paid to the design and maintenance of the school etc all these things are also part of the rigour we have in creating a good setting for children and adults to learn and grow. This brings us to the metaphor of ecology or the "organic" metaphor - one aspect of it is that all things are interconnected. We need to be a community of children, parents, teachers and others - ie acknowledge our interconnectedness. Building design is also influenced by the organic need for community - most gathering spaces will be circular, the class rooms are octagonal etc. The proscenium theater has a lesser role than an egg shaped open air theatre so this is what we will build first. The children first planted saplings in our mini "Thevar Kadu" - as a direct act of respect to the ecological metaphor. Our Panchavati trees - the five sacred fig trees are also meant to remind us of our heritage of respect for nature and the environment. The importance of relatedness - with ourselves, with each other, with our children's parents, with our neighbouring villages with others in the education community has also dictated many of our choices and plans. The Aastha internship program as a necessary experience for teachers is